Your Voice

Parent Power: The Key to America's Prosperity

Submitted by: Jack Westman

Category: Books

Our governments become involved in struggling families and their adult offspring at the cost of 23% of state and 45% of county expenditures that flow largely from our federal income taxes. As a result, the United States is at the top of the list of developed nations in child abuse and neglect and at the bottom in educational achievement. Without concerted action, every American taxpayer will continue to suffer the consequences.

For humanitarian and financial reasons─and for our nation’s prosperity─we must get our government out of family lives by preventing the formation of, and reducing the number of, struggling families in the United States. We can do this by ensuring that every newborn baby has an opportunity to succeed in life by limiting the custody of newborn babies to persons who are not under the custody of others themselves. This can be done through a Parenthood Affirmation process that expands the birth certificate to become a parenthood certificate for the parent(s) of that child. When a girl or woman under the custody of others becomes pregnant, a Parenthood Planning Team would be activated to ensure that a willing and able relative(s) co-signs the Parenthood Affirmation and has custody of the baby at birth. If there is no willing qualified person(s), a plan would be made for adoption at birth.

The United States needs a national organization for all parents, like the American Association of Retired Persons, to represent them as they raise our nation's children.

Only by fulfilling the right of all newborn babies to have competent parents will the United States ensure its prosperity.

About the author:

Jack C. Westman, M.D., M.S., develops public policies with the aim of giving every child an opportunity to become a productive citizen. He is the author of 11 books and is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus on strengthening families. Currently he is a volunteer lobbyist with Wisconsin state and federal governments through Wisconsin Cares, Inc., an interdisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting family friendly public policies.